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Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Starship again last night!

Yesterday was another shocking day - he was awake from 12pm miserable and not sleeping. So at about 6:30pm we took the screamer to Starship. Some silly young thing that had just started there implied that he was a naughty baby and some babies are just like that and demand a lot of attention and cry a lot unless held. She said that we don't want to encourage bad behaviour though and that he's doing it because he knows we'll come. You silly, silly girl!! She also asked if we had a lot of support and to make sure that our support people were taking over to give us a break, and to try putting him in a stroller and going for a walk to cope with it better. We weren't going in there to say "Help! We don't know what to do with our newborn! He cries and we don't like it!". He's 7 and a half weeks old, we're pretty confident in what we're doing and know when he's in pain or just crying because he's unhappy. We explained AGAIN that it really appears as if he's in pain and nothing calms him or makes the pain go - not even holding you idiot!! We explained AGAIN that he'd been in when he was 3 weeks old for the same thing and was diagnosed with reflux and the gaviscon just wasn't working. I told her that we've done a lot of research and spoken to a lot of people with reflux babies and we would like losec. Young girlie agreed that's what should probably happen and said she'd get the senior doctor to come in to examine him. It was the Botty Burp Irish paedeatrician from last time, she examined him and observed his behaviour (wriggling, screaming, grunting and unsettleable) and told us that he has a bad case of reflux where the milk burns him on the way down as well as up when it comes back up, so he's in constant pain (which we already knew). This is called reflux oesophagitis and we got a prescription for losec which will hopefully ease the poor boy. So after three hours we leave with report for our GP, prescription for losec and nice condescending words of encouragement from Silly Young Thing "You guys are doing really well, these babies are hard work and you're doing such a good job. Make sure you get that support you need at this hard time." Poor wee Caelan was exhausted from so many days with so little sleep, he fed when we got home (not much due to pain and tiredness) and went to bed just after 12am and slept till 7:30am. The reflux gods must have listened to something!

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Poor wee boy

Argh - well after a virtually sleepless day of crying, grunting, stiffening up and wriggling about in pain/discomfort and being unsettleable I called Plunket. I thought they may have been able to recommend something else to calm him. I described what he'd been like all day and was told that I should either take him to Starship Hospital or an A and E as it didn't sound good and babies can deteriorate so quickly. We chose the A & E rather than endure the wait of the hospital again. We went to Ascot Emergency Clinic which had about 35 million people in the waiting room; I groaned, Chris said "Shit" and a man informed us that he said that as soon as he walked in too. Well Mr "Shit" Man we wont be sitting there as you've chosen to do, we promptly turned around and headed to the Remuera A and E. He was seen after about half an hour and they couldn't really find anything, the doctor said his heartrate was faster than it should be but that was all. He checked out the noisey hernia and thought it odd that it was making the noise. His recommendation was we go to our GP to get a stronger reflux medication as the gaviscon obviously wasn't working and get him to recheck the hernia and get a referral to a paediatrician. Also that if he continues as he is or gets worse we should take him straight to Starship where he'd go through the system quicker to see a paediatrician as the wait is quite long when referred by a GP. He gave us a letter to take to Starship if the need arises, we paid and headed home. After a feed and about half an hour more crying he finally fell asleep out of exhaustion. Poor wee thing, it's just horrible. All of this isn't fair. We thought he would have slept longer but nope - still only three hours, but at least it was a sleep right?!

Sooo the plan is - let him have a restful day today (if that's possible!), take him to the doctor tomorrow to get stronger medication and a referral, use the new medication to see if that works in the meantime and hopefully after a not-so-long wait we'll see the paediatrician and VOILA he shall be cured! haha If only it was that simple.

We've decided to take him to a cranial osteopath as well. Hopefully this eases him, we've been told it should and that we'll be amazed with the result. Sooooo here's hoping! His appointment is at 12pm on Thursday, it's not with the woman that came highly recommended as she's away at the moment but we'll still go rather than wait for her to come back. Apparently he may need a few sessions and it's not cheap, but if it can help him it'll be worth it. We'll try anything! It's just so sad and unfair that he has to be in pain and upset all the time.

Fingers, knees and toes shall all be crossed!

Monday, May 29, 2006

Still unsettled

Poor wee thing has been sooooo very unsettled lately. This morning after his 8am feed he's hardly slept more than 10 minutes before waking up crying and then falling asleep again after a few minutes to wake up crying shortly after. Crickey this can't make for a very restful sleep! He just seems to be in pain a lot which involves a lot of grunting, groaning and crying. There have only been about 2-3 sleeps that I remember where he hasn't screamed himself to sleep. It must be yucky to be so miserable all of the time, makes me really sad for him.

He HATES the gaviscon - poor boy. He's having all of this yucky stuff shoved down his neck before and after every feed - as if he wasn't miserable enough before, we're just gonna make him feel worse! He has the infacol before a feed, which he doesn't seem to mind too much - just a bit pissed off at having this syringe shoved in his gob when it's supposed to be a boob! After his feed he has the gaviscon and absolutely hates it. He gets really worked up about it - it makes me feel so evil. We haven't noticed a difference yet, but apparently you have to use it consistently for three days before you can tell if it's working. Sooooo no more skipping giving it to him because he's already so miserable, we've just gotta do it so we can see if it works. I'd say having it and hating it but feeling good the rest of the time is better than being in pain and upset all the time. If it doesn't work it's back to the doctor to try another medication. A side-effect of all reflux medication is constipation - he seems pretty good so far, though his poos have gone from really runny to mashed pumpkin as Daddy calls it.

We used his frontpack for the first time yesterday - it was so good! He loves it, doesn't sleep in it (of course - it's not his cot!) but enjoys just hanging out. We went to see my horse and he really enjoyed looking around the paddocks while being jiggled along by Daddy.

Friday, May 26, 2006

7 weeks and crying on, woops - carrying on!

Caelan's been really unsettled lately - had two really bad days with LOTS and LOTS of crying and LITTLE sleeping. This makes for a lovely alert mummy - not!! He's not sleeping as long as he was at night either now. And is feeding really fussily - like wriggling and moaning the whole time and not feeding for long. Which of course mean he's hungry earlier. He's generally pretty miserable and just after a feed and burp he's still squirmy and whiney until it's time to go back to bed. Poor boy - I'd love for him to be happy and smiley and learning to laugh and make sounds. Instead he's practising the one sound that Mummy and Daddy realise he knows oh so well! Ugh.

Gripe water is no longer my friend. Infacol was my friend for one day but now it's not either. These things only seem to ease him for a day before he's back to what he was like before. Tomorrow we're gonna start on the gavison - tonight I shall pray to the reflux gods.

Sleeping isn't doing so well either, he was sleeping for around 3/4 hours during the day with up time of an hour to an hour and a half and at night he'd sleep for 4-6 hours usually with the odd longer one of 7 hours and then the once off mammoth 10 hours. But now he's sleeping 3/4 hours at night as well - poos.

He cries = I go.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Milking, sleeping n' stuff

Well I've just expressed 160ml after a feed! So I've gone from being worried about my supply to being bloody impressed! Had blocked milk ducts a couple of days ago - talk about damned painful! Hot wheat bag, followed by olive oil massage, then feeding Caelan from mainly that side, followed by expressing and another massage - magic! No more painful lumpy blockages - nice things one has to go through whilst being a breastfeeding mother!

Last night our wee man slept for 10 and a half hours straight. Scared the shyte outta me when I woke up to see the time and realise he hadn't woken me yet! We were terrified, Chris rushed to his room and there he was sleeping peacefully. We woke him to feed which he wasn't too impressed with, I was so worried but he was fine, alert and fed well (wasn't ravenous though which I thought he'd be) and went back to sleep after an hour and a half. He then woke 3 hours later for another feed and everything seems to be back to normal. 10 and a half hours at this age - it just seems quite scary. Maybe he just thinks he's a grown up now that he's over 6 weeks. hehe Confusing things these babies!

His hernia just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It looks awful!! The doctor said they will just about always clear up when the stomach muscles develop more and if not it will be operated on when he's about 2 years old. Hopefully it goes because my lord it's ugly - talk about the monster of all outties! Poor guy but it's not bothering him which is great.

Gripe water is our new best friend! It's worked wonders for Caelan's painful wind, he's such a silly boy we've been telling him to just burp after a feed, but noooo. Gripe water is helping and eases the buildup of wind in his tummy which is great. He's had a bad couple of days with tummy pain and when it's this bad he doesn't feed that well - poor thing just squirms and grunts the whole time. Gripe water seems to ease this, therefore I LOVE IT! It's hard though because he's miserable quite a lot with a sore tummy and horrid reflux. We've got gaviscon and infacol which we'll try too. Something better work and make life nicer for our wee boy - we want to be hearing laughs not cries!

He'll be graduating to the big kids bath real soon I'd say!




Playing in his bouncer for the first time yesterday and loving it!

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

My achy breaky heart

Yesterday Caelan got his 6 week immunisations - wow oh wow that was soooo horrible. He was in so much pain and screamed so hard - it broke my heart and I cried nearly as much as he did. It's horrible to see your baby in so much pain and know you willingly let it happen to them, I can't think of anything worse. I held him and cried while telling him how sorry I was. My poor little boy. He was 5.71kg, that's another awesome gain since last Tuesday when he was 5.3kg. I'm glad that he's putting on weight so well regardless of all the vomiting! He was pretty good when we bought him home, fed and went to sleep but woke a few hours later screaming in pain, it took a long time to settle him which required more tears from me. He's been pretty unsettled as expected but it didn't last as long as we thought which is great.

Monday, May 22, 2006

It's up north we go! It's up north we go! Hi-ho-a-merry-oh it's up noth we go!

We woke at 3:30am Saturday morning for a feed and decided that we'd head up to Whangarei after that feed. Sooooooo at 6:30 we actually leave! A lot later than we'd intended - but of course we are Chris and Saffron! hehe With stamp mission complete and danishes in stomachs we headed up north. It was a pretty good drive apart from having been detoured a million miles in the wrong direction to come back again and be only about 10km up the road. Thanks to the lovely folk at the council or whoever was responsible!! Just as well I don't know cause I reckon they should reimburse the quarter of a tank it used, not to mention the 50 minutes of our lives we'll never get back. We discovered how to adjust Caelan's carseat to have a rollcage in protection against giant falling dogs which was useful - poor Caelan was woken to Toa falling on him around a corner - WOOPSY! When we got there Makere was out at a meeting so Caelan couldn't meet his Grandmother straight away, though he did meet Great Grandma who was so thrilled to finally meet him. She spoke to him in maori and they grinned toothy grins at each other - it was lovely. He thought she was pretty cool and she, well of course, she was smitten. It was so great to be up there and for everyone to meet him - though poor Makere and Lennie were sick, but everyone was glad to finally meet the new addition to the family. We stayed there the night with Caelan only having one good sleep and then waking and 5am and not settling again - joy. So after 5 hours of crying we decided that we'd better just bring him home to sleep. He fell asleep in the car - thank goodness! We stopped to visit Sola and the kids on our way home and he slept for a while longer and then feed before we carried on. It was a good trip but it was good to get home and have Caelan get a good night of sleep - and for us! The whole Clark family was pretty damned tired, dog included. Time for a feed now thanks he shouts from his room!



Great Grandma and I.




Aunty Sola cracked me up!




My cousins EB (Te Ripongahau) and Puzzle (Te Taonga).




Daddy loves me sooooo much!

Friday, May 19, 2006

6 weeks old today!

Wow, it's amazing how quickly the six weeks has gone by! Caelan's doing well, feeding much better after such a slow start. He's unsettled quite a lot, cries a lot due to his sore tummy - damned reflux! Poor wee thing, it's so hard seeing him in pain and not being able to do anything about it. This parenting thing is heart-breaking! I'm sure my heart will break a million times throughout his wonderful life. I just want to make him feel better and I can't. He's vomiting all the time too which can't be nice for him. Hopefully we get it under control soon or he grows out of it real soon - like tomorrow! Tomorrow would be good!

Apart from that he's doing really well. He's already over 5kg and is putting on weight at a good rate now too regardless of all the vomit, he's smiling and laughing (with funny little sounds, not real laugh noises) and is such a lovely little boy. Oh so gorgeous too!

It's our six monthiversary today and we were gonna go out for dinner but have decided that rather than upset his routine (well if you can even call it that yet!) we'll stay home and order in. So that's what we'll do - dinner and a movie homestyle!

Well the wee one sings about being hungry - so off I go. MOO!







Caelan's birth

6 April 2006
Holy cow we’re having our baby tomorrow! That was a weird feeling to know that just the next day we would have our baby. I was thinking a lot more about whether it was a boy or girl too – it was all so exciting and odd. We went crazy getting everything finished in the baby’s room. We finished painting all the photo frames and trinket box and Chris painted a really cute dragon for the wall – he’s so clever! I painted two bright canvasses – one with love, aroha on it and a koru heart and the other with family, whanau with a koru tree. They didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped but they’re on the wall and at least I did it myself for our baby and even if they’re ugly – the thought was there right!? hehe We finished the room and holy moly it was sooooo gorgeous! We thought we were awesome for doing it and oh so happy with the result. Unfortunately it wasn’t finished then, I wanted the house to be immaculate and even though it was already late at night I tossed up which I would prefer and being tired tomorrow suited me more than coming home with a new baby and the house annoying me because things needed to be done. So we stayed up until about 3.30-4am-ish cleaning absolutely everything. Silly huh?

7 April 2006
When the alarm went off at 5:30am I really didn’t feel the best let me tell ya! I rolled over and croaked “We’re gonna be parents today” to Chris. We had to be at the hospital at 7am so we’d planned to get there at 6:30am to allow time for parking the car. I showered, shaved my legs and bikini line (freakin hard!!) – had to be presentable! We left on time with an absolutely HUGE bag – I can’t go anywhere without about 4 sets of clothes too many! I had no idea what I’d need or how much of anything so I took way too much rather than too little. I think I was starting to get a little nervous – well I didn’t feel nervous as I’m a pretty calm person but I started to get irritable and stressed and I reckon that was my nerves. Chris’ driving was driving me insane and I was getting really wound up feeling inside as he seemed to be driving really slow and I really didn’t want to be late. But we were fine, got there just before 7am – just as well we’d planned to get there at 6:30am otherwise we would have been late! hehehe We’re hopeless! At level 5 reception we got told to go to Tamaki Ward on level 10, so off we went. Got there and had to wait a while before being taken to my room. Of course I got two comments on the size of my bag and how long I intended on staying. Of course. My room was surprisingly nice – it was huge and overlooked the domain. Once there Chris went to park the car and I wrote in the book to our bubba. I really wanted Chris to come back quickly as it was starting to feel odd. Some horrid annoying midwife came in, irritated the snot out of me and told me to get undressed and into the hospital gown. Great my arse would be hanging out soon! I got changed and Chris arrived pretty soon after that. Annoying midwife came back to jabber constantly – combined with my severe tiredness she was exhausting! She prattled about inane crap and was so negative about everybody and everything. I had to take the nail polish off that I’d put on especially for the day – what a pain! hehe



Chris and I in my room waiting to become parents.

At 9:30am annoying midwife and a nurse came to collect me. It was awesome to be lying down – I was so damned tired! I was wheeled down some corridors, into a lift and to another room next to recovery to be seen by the anaesthetist and prepare to go into theatre. Thank goodness this is where annoying midwife left us – good bye! I got asked a whole lot of questions about whether I was allergic to this or that and the procedure got explained to us as well as the thingy (can’t remember what it’s called right now) was put in my hand. My midwife turned up unexpectedly as she’d been in over night with two births and had seen the specialist with him asking if she was going to be there for my caesarean. It was nice to see her (surprisingly!) - I think because she was a familiar face amongst all of the strangers. We had a short wait there before being wheeled through to theatre. What a surreal feeling – I was gonna be a mum very soon. Chris was a little nervous but said he was more excited than anything. Who were all of these people at my party?! Holy moly there were a lot of people in there! It was really nice having my midwife there, she was great and really kind and encouraging (not a side we’d seen of her). Chris was great – I’d been worried that he’d get concerned and it would show heaps on his face which would then make me feel bad for him and lose my control. But he was great – really encouraging and wonderful and so excited. A lovely nurse explained how I had to sit and told me that I’d get wiped down with cold stuff and the epidural would be put in. She was great, I really liked her and her way of going through stuff with me. Chris and I had a funny time being dicks together while waiting for them to do this.



About to get the epidural.

The anaesthetist started his thing and shit was the cleansing stuff cold alright! They told Chris to come forward and give me his hand while they put the epidural in – that wasn’t so nice but wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We jabbered there for while longer as the folk at my party bustled about doing there stuff. Even though we were told there’d be a lot of people this was more than I expected. A whole lot of them came to help me lie down as by then I couldn’t move at all. I was told I wouldn’t give a damn about people seeing my arse etc – boy was that I lie. It was horrible! They then inserted the catheter – very horrible, embarrassing experience! I was then washed down, our specialist turned up and it was all on. What a horrible feeling it was. There wasn’t any pain but it sure was uncomfortable and yuck feeling. Chris was watching at one stage and I had to ask if he could talk to me instead of watch as I needed distracting from the horrid feelings. He was great, I thought once it began he would be more uncomfortable than he was, but nope – he was just super excited. It took a whole lot longer than both Chris and I expected – I don’t know how long it took though but it seemed quite some time before they said that we’d see some feet soon. Chris just about leapt up to see, I couldn’t look at all, I was just thinking ‘Ew god, yuck I’m not looking at a hole in my guts’. “And here come some legs” and I still couldn’t look, I was just looking at Chris’ amazed looking face. “Here’s you baby” and that was it, I had to look! There was my baby. Being held up by the legs, facing away from us, a big beautiful baby. I was overwhelmed then and crying. Somebody was saying that we’d see what sex it was soon and I told Chris to tell me, I didn’t want anyone else to tell me. Chris then told me it’s a boy, I felt really shocked and really emotional “A little boy, we’ve got a little boy” I kept saying while crying. I was so overwhelmed by completely new feelings. They took our screaming little boy away for his tests and continued on with me. I couldn’t stop the tears. Chris went to the table where our little boy was screaming his head off – hearing this sound and thinking ‘That’s my little boy’ was amazing. I lay there with tears running down my face feeling bewildered by everything. Chris was taking photos and then came back to me. It was such a lovely moment between us to have finally seen our baby – our baby that we made. He kept going between me and where he was. It seemed a long time before Chris was given him, he sat next to me holding our son. When I looked at him I saw my nose – he looked like my son! It was all amazing. The next thing I noticed was the long fingers – they looked so long to me. I don’t know how long it took to sew me up but after that we were taken to recovery and I was finally able to hold my boy. It was all so amazing – to look into this little face that looked like me and be overwhelmed by love and joy. He was awesome. He is awesome.

Family cuddles



Me and my Grandfather - my Mummy's father.




My Grandma and Granddad - Daddy's parents.




My GreatWompa! Daddy's Womps (grandfather).




Uncle Matt and Crystal.

He's a little boy! 25 April 2006



Well Caelan is starting to look more and more like a little boy now and not a new born baby. He's just gorgeous! He has a GREAT set of lungs on him and can certainly use them when he wants! He's now two weeks and four days old and we've just given him his middle name - he is Caelan Kahurangi Clark. Kahurangi means precious which is very fitting. We had asked my Grandma to name him a maori name from my family but she got back to me and said that we can't really do that as all the men in our family were chiefs and the names have to continue being first names - they can't have something infront of them. That makes sense. It's a bit of a bummer but that's how it has to be and I totally understand. So does Chris, though he was disappointed as he wanted it to have come from the family. Sooooo Kahurangi it is and that's lovely and feels nice knowing that we've named him that and it means a lot to us. He's starting to smile more which is the cutest thing I've ever seen - it makes me smile just thinking about it. This parenthood thing is pretty amazing, I thought I'd feel different - but I don't, I feel like me. A me who now breastfeeds a baby and loves him so much it hurts to hear him cry. But I haven't changed. Neither has Chris. We've just grown. We're growing together too which is wonderful. It's been great and we're doing really well. Chris is a wonderful Daddy (I knew he would be though), it's so lovely to watch him with Caelan. He's so supportive of me and really thinks of me and tries to make everything easier. He's just the best! The Clark's are a happy family. We're really looking forward to the next one now - a little girl. But lets just get used to this one first aye?

Home time!

Here's the finished room! Aint it gorgeous? We think so anyway and it feels so nice to know we put so much effort into it and did it ourselves, rather than buying everything done. It was so much fun to paint everything and make the mobile and do the special paintings for our baby :) Horray - we rock!



Here's the gorgeous one - so peaceful and angelic! This is when we first got home from the hospital.

Caelan Clark is born! 7 April 2006







It's a boy!

7 April 2006
10:52am
3.9 kg - 8.10 pounds
54cm

He was delivered via caesarean due to being breech. He is a healthy boy who just had his first night at home last night. Right now Mummy and Daddy need to sleep as they didn't get much last night! Will update later.

9 weeks left! 14 February 2006

Well in under 9 weeks we'll meet our baby! I can't wait. It's so exciting. I'm starting to get bits under the ribs now which isn't so comfortable. We've started getting the nursery ready - must be having a baby now, we've got a baby's room! hehehe

We're moving!

I was using another blogspot for this but I think this one's way better so I'm moving everything over! This means the dates aren't gonna be right but HEY at least it's all here. :)